So I don't actually use the word "hate" very often and when I do I must truly feel that word passionately about the subject I'm speaking of. I certainly do not want to hear that word from my children's mouths. When talking about Home Depot, this word immediately comes to mind. You see, I am not a fan of this store and as a matter of fact, I hate this place. My husband likes for me to join him on his little adventures to this local retail shop and I don't know why exactly, its not like I'm great company or encouraging in any way. In fact, I don't care what he buys or how much it costs so long as he gets me out of there as quick as possible. Did you ever see the episode from The Newlyweds where Jessica Simpson (and DO NOT be ugly about her, she is my girl crush, I love her!) is complaining about being at Home Depot with Nick? That's me, perfectly. Today, while shopping at this popular retail store (problem #1) as a family (problem #2) Jason makes us walk up and down just about every aisle. Not only this, he thinks he must backtrack down the aisle a few more times to make sure he hasn't missed something that he MUST have. As he turns around from one fun toy to the next, so are the kids. This is when it happened.... Colton kicked my foot as he turned and broke my big toe nail on the skin. So this incident just added more humor and fun to my lovely trip. So rather than grumble any louder (which is almost impossible) I take out my camera to catch a few more highlights of our Home Depot trip. Colton LOVES this store as much as his father and actually tried to use these beloved tools right there on the spot. I even caught him unscrewing a level. Cameron would be more interested if they had a sporting goods section. And Courtnie.... well she tries to stay involved and pretends to know what things are and how they work. I guess that's better than her mother. 
Afterwards, since we were all so good at the store (myself included, although my family may tell you differently) we went to lunch. Again, we had another playground disaster which required me to rescue Colton from inside the play structure. I come out just as Jason was getting the camera ready to snap pictures. LOL. Luckily, I made it out this time before a picture was taken or an injury occurred. I'm going to rethink Coltons participation in playground areas for awhile.
I have had this asked to me numerous times over the last 10 years of being a stay-at-home mom. And sometimes I don't have all the answers. Truthfully, there have been times I've asked myself the same question; I've wondered why I am so exhausted and haven't sat down all day and yet nothing on my to-do list was checked off. So AMEN SISTER to this article written for all mothers. If you are a working mother, AMEN as well because you do all of this and work. 
Upon a friend's suggestion, I did this book with Colton to try and keep him entertained on this freezing cold morning. He is very reluctant to learn for some reason and since I wasn't blessed with an abundance of patience, we do not make a very good pair sometimes. BUT, we did finish the book and he is very proud of it. I cant however figure out how to get him to tell me that it's the letter "C", he keeps telling me "I don't know. I don't know." For reference, his "car" he can drive across his book, the cross moves around like an accordian, and behind the "C" cover page is a page where he traced upper and lower case "C"s, and the smaller pictures are things that begin with the letter "C". If you are a teacher of any age -bless your hearts. 
Even with the wintry forecast being predicted for today and tomorrow, my good friend Anna and I braved the weather and made it for our routine Tuesday storytime. Afterwards we went to eat lunch at a popular fast food place where the kids could play and run off some of their stored energy. One of Anna's little girls runs to me and says Colton's stuck inside the play structure (I'm certain my face went from smiling happy to fearsome). I immediately look at this play structure and it instantly starts to grow into this monstrous size; I'm not near as small as I once was. Anna laughs and comments on the fact that she wishes she had her camera. I am finding appreciation in the small blessing that Anna doesn't have her camera because all I can imagine is a picture of my massive size butt hanging out of one of the entrances, windows or slides. On my way up to the top (because he certainly couldn't have gotten stuck towards the bottom) I hit my head not once, but twice on solid plastic. Keeping my teeth clenched from cursing this structure, I get to the top and there Colton is - sitting at the top. "Hi Mommy. I'm stuck." Interesting, he doesn't look stuck to me. At all. He's merely sitting there chatting away with his friends. He claims he couldn't get down, except by the time I made it to the top, which was not an easy task, he mustered up enough courage to move and head down the slide. So the kids are headed down and I just sit there rubbing my head trying to figure out the best way to get down with the least amount of injury. So down the slide I go. Did you know that the cracks on the slide are painful to the backside? No really, surely kids feel this. They have far less padding on their tush than I do. So along with the grimaced look on my face, my hair has been completely taken over by static. That would have been a lasting picture. Thank you Lord for keeping Anna's mind distracted this morning and forgetting her camera =)
I try not to vent on my blog but I have been deemed the worst mother and wife of the year today. This evening rather. I had a great day actually! While at work today I received a call from a marketing research company and they needed Cameron and me to come tonight to a study that paid $100 per hour. Of course I'll be there! And it's a great opportunity for Cameron (plus he owes me money). Jason and I had also talked about taking the kids to my moms to spend the night and after the study going to see a movie.
I left work and called Jason only to hear he was in a terrible mood. (I still haven't figured out why though and he is standing his ground that he is not in a bad mood. Hmm.... denial. Isn't that the first sign?) Cameron gets home from school and is ticked about going tonight. Because you know, going to a study to talk about watching movies in a theater for $100 an hour is sheer torture. We are on our way there when it dawns on me that I'm an hour early. However, this is a perfect opportunity to have dinner with my son. Right? Apparently not. This to Cameron is like throwing him to the wolves because now he wont talk to me. Great. So here I am tonight trying to make a little extra cash, broadening Cameron's horizons, trying to have a date with my child and everyone is in a TERRIBLE mood. I was feeling totally frustrated and resentful (still do as I write this). We ordered our food and sat down to eat and my son still wouldn't talk to me and Jason kept calling to release his frustration (except remember he wasn't in a bad mood). I sat inside the restaurant and just cried. What else does a woman do at this point? Smile and talk to herself?! Just how I had planned my evening. It gets better....
We get to the study and apparently the lady I talked to had two studies confused. The earlier time was for kids and the time slot they had me in was for adults. So they kindly ask me if it's okay that Cameron wait for 90 minutes or so while I do the study. Uh no. My son may be acting like a jerk, but I however am not that cruel. It would have been fine for me to sit for 90 minutes while Cameron did the study because that's what mothers do - we sacrifice. But I'm certainly not going to make my son do that. I'll take the hard piece of bread, the dinner scraps and cold showers, but I'm not about to make my kids sacrifice on my behalf. So we left.
So here it is Friday night. I'm sitting at home in my pj's with everyone mad at me. And what did I do to them? We'll see who gets homemade meals this weekend.... If Mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy. They'll learn that rule soon enough.
We had Colton's birthday party last weekend at Texas Skatium (for all my friends since way back in Elementary school, this is most commonly known as Jamie's). We had a blast! All of his friends were there and every child skated. They did so good!! Here are a couple of pics from the event. Thank you to my sweetest friend Jaimie for helping with the picture taking. I am so very terrible at taking pictures while hosting (that's the problem with my one-track mind). On our family album there are over 80 pics, check that out for more sweet faces.
My baby turned 4 yesterday, I can’t believe it! He has turned into quite a handsome, comical and very intelligent little guy. He knows what he wants and how he wants it and anything less is unacceptable. He has lost that baby voice when he talks, he speaks words that I never knew a child his age knew how to say, much less use them in the perfect context. He is the most loving and affectionate child ever. He can give some mean hugs and kisses too!! He also loves boy-words, which I will leave to your imagination. And food – my heaven’s this kid never stops eating. He eats all day long (healthy stuff too). He can put a plate of food away in record time and ask for more. Where he stores this we haven’t a clue! He is still undecided on using his left or right hand. At this point, we think he’ll be ambidextrous. He definitely writes, cuts, and eats with utensils with his left hand. I also discovered two days ago that he uses a computer mouse with his left hand (and they only had a right-handed mouse, poor guy). This never occurred to me since we have a laptop and we just use the finger pad. We think he kicks, throws and bats right-handed. Oh and he also eats with his hands right handed.
Just to remember some of the sweetest words he says, with their translations:
Wonderwear (underwear)
Fruit luh-luh (Fruit Roll-Up)
Pop holder (pot holder)
Boy cheese sandwiches
Chucky Charms (Lucky Charms)
Estercise
Chick-a-lay
Elegator (elevator)Happy Birthday son, we love you!!!
I'm in the kitchen showing Cameron how to cut sausage for tonight's dinner (Jambalaya, yum!) and we turn around to find Colton helping himself to finding a cup. Not bad, except for the fact that he's more than 3 feet off the ground. A good mother would have rushed to his side and gotten him down..... but I ran for my camera! Sorry for the angle. I always forget that I can't turn the video around and need to shoot horizontally. Its also dark but I didnt want to risk turning on more lights and scare him, that definitely wouldnt get me the mother-of-the-year award!
I was doing laundry on a nice Suday afternoon (as I always do) and these are Cameron's socks. That I washed. Seriously child, what good do these socks do for you? Do they keep you warm? Comfort your feet while running and playing? I imagine they did at one point, but do they now? lol. Sadly, this is how his socks look all the time. We buy him an entire new sock wardrobe about every 5-6 weeks. How one boy makes a mess out of socks like this, I'll never know. You cant really see all of them clearly, but they all went straight to the trash. But look at the best sock of them all - bottom row, first one on the left. No toe, no heel. No worries!
10. Jason became somewhat of the handy-man around the house. Too many times this year the kids tried out their acrobatic skills leaving Dad to repair the damages. The broken items around the house this year include the towel rack in the master bathroom, the shower curtain rod in the kids’ bathroom, a piece of tile in front of the fireplace, a strip of cabinet trim in the kitchen, and the kitchen table. This doesn’t include the many toys or play items repaired or deemed ruined in the midst of fun.
9. Brandie had two procedures done this year – she had her wisdom teeth taken out in May and an ablation procedure done in October. Both were much needed and life changing.
8. Courtnie cheered for the Falcons this year. The girls went to a local cheer competition and won 1st place for their dance and 1st place for their cheer/chant and came home the Grand Champions!
7. Cameron went to his first, and second, overnight camps this year. He went to Camp Goddard with a friend over the summer and he went to Sky Ranch Camp with his 5th grade class in September. Brandie went with him as a chaperone to the school camp. What great opportunities both of these camps were for him.
6. Brandie completed her Associates Degree this year. Jason took his first college course this year and will be taking quite a few more for work. Once he is done, Brandie has plans to go back and finish her Bachelors Degree.
5. Spelling Bee champions must run in the family. Cameron won 2nd place in his school Spelling Bee, after he purposely spelled democracy with a “k”. He didn’t want the girl he has a crush on lose or to see anymore girls crying for misspelling a word. What a guy! Next time though, let’s spell correctly and win!
4. Colton gave us quite the scare this year when Brandie went to wake him up one morning and found him barely able to breath. Trying not to panic and scare all three kids, she gave him breathing treatments while calling Daddy at work. By the time she met Jason to take him to the hospital, Colton was breathing much better. Apparently it was a small case of croup in the airway. Not sure who likes to call that small, but it was a big deal to the family.
3. Luckily Cameron did not take a baseball to the eye this year, but he did pitch a no-hit inning with a total of 10 pitches this Spring. He also made all four outs in this same inning. Trying to figure that one out? The catcher dropped the last strike and Cameron caught the bounce and threw him out at first. Later in the Fall season, he pitched a no-hitter game. Those are some great baseball skills! He still talks about going to USC or UT to play baseball when he graduates high school.
2. Courtnie won her first ever 1st place trophy in dance for her duet. She and her friend, who have both been dancing since they were two years old, are doing a duet together this year and they won 1st place at their first competition. These dances are different than her team dances.
1. Colton’s car, truck and anything-with-wheels collection has jumped up to 246. Can you believe just one child has that many transportation toys? Amazingly enough, he plays with every one of them, knows when a car is missing and exactly which car it is. A medical fund is now being set up for Colton because it seems his transportation interests are headed towards racing anything with wheels along with his desire to have his training wheels removed from his new bike that he received from Santa this year.
